The Epworth Poltergeist: 8 – Possible Causes
In this final part, we examine various possible causes for what could be behind the Epworth Poltergeist haunting. As we only have eye witness statements, some contemporary to the activity, some ten years later, and one nearly 70 years later, this should be taken into account. It is not possible to prove conclusively what was behind the source, but food for thought is offered. Your thoughts may differ, and that’s great – pop your thoughts in the comments section below, with your argument. It would be good to hear ideas which may not have been thought of.
We’ll break the evidence up into two possible causes: natural and paranormal. For each, we’ll examine further possibilities. Bear in mind that the evidence suggests there may not be one single source, but a combination of things working together.
Natural
Haunting effects could have come from human or non-human sources in this area. We shall explore some possible sources in turn.
Non Human Sources
Often bangs and knocks can be attributed to the movement of the landscape and/or seasonal / daily heating and cooling cycles.
Thermal Effects
As temperatures change throughout the day, houses settle as they breathe due to thermal expansion/contraction.The thermal expansion phenomena is commonly experienced with no paranormal explanation when radiators in a house warm up or cool down, making banging sounds. Often small knocking sounds can be attributed to plumbing systems – trapped air in pipes or thermal expansion. In this case, no radiators would have been present, although fires would have been in use during the wintertime of this case, which could have caused sounds from heating effects. Bear in mind that the house was less than ten years old after previously being destroyed in 1709. Had timbers not been properly seasoned before fitting, they would have been drying out, contracting and possibly making noises as they did so. However, this wouldn’t necessarily account for the change in cycle of the phenomena with the horn blowing incident.
Land Settlement
The land settlement was first brought to my attention as a young child when I was reading “World of the Unknown: Ghosts” by Usbourne Publishing. It describes the mystery of a house where loud bangs were heard which shook the walls of the house [1]. Investigators discovered the source to be an unused sewer which would flood and drain as the water table changed with the nearby tide, altering the land levels as above.
It should be remembered that the land around Epworth, located in the Isle of Axholme was being drained around this time, altering water tables and contracting land in the process [2]. It’s possible that the loud bangs and shaking of the walls may have been caused by this process. Whether records exist of particular drainage activity in the area around that time is left for others to investigate.
Nearby Vegetation
Knocking on windows may sometimes be attributed to the branches of nearby trees blowing in the wind. We don’t have contemporary local weather reports, so cannot check this, and any remains of nearby trees of that time will have rotted away. However, this phenomena is not new, and the initially skeptical Mr Wesley would surely have spotted if this was the case.
Animals: Rodents
Homeowners are often unawares of the variety of creatures which they may be playing host to. Mrs Wesley mentions that rats were removed from a house across the street, which suggests they could have moved into their house for warmth in the wintertime. The Wesleys had a grain store in the garrets which could well be responsible for some of the acoustic phenomena from rodents living up there. Given that the garrets would have been fairly quiet during the day [3], any rat population would have had time to rest before beginning their nocturnal activities. When the horn was blown for half a day up there, it would certainly have broken up the rat population into more populated areas of the house, where disturbances during the family’s everyday activities may have caused the rats to move about in the daytime, making unusual noises.
Animals: Pets
The family pets, a cat and dog, may be responsible for some of the gown swishing noises heard. In the dark, an unseen animal coming into a room and brushing itself against a wall or leg of a table, can make a noise which could be interpreted as a swishing gown, especially if one is expecting ghostly activity.
Summary
Whilst it may be that noises were continually being produced by natural phenomena, the family’s heightened sensitivity at this time may have made them become more aware of any noises, subsequently attributing them to the haunting. Had certain members of the household wished, they could have joined in with the phenomena, adding in embellishments for their own entertainment.
Human Sources
There are a lot of household members that could have added to the story of the haunting. We shall explore some of the more obvious ones in turn.
Mrs Wesley
Mrs Wesley had experienced the hardship of her husband walking out fourteen years previously for a year. Their political differences would definitely tie in with the knocking heard only during the prayers for the king, whose authority she despised.
She is also the only person to have seen the “headless badger” disappear under Emily’s petticoats. Whether this was deliberately added in to the existing natural phenomena is hard to say, or it could just be that she imagined seeing something moving about in the dark before sunrise. Oddly Emily does not mention this in any of her letters, which you’d expect if she was as excited about the phenomena as her letters make out.
However, Mrs Wesley couldn’t have produced the audio phenomena heard on the Best Stairs by both herself and her husband. Neither the sounds which were heard elsewhere whilst she was present with witnesses.
There’s the possibility that Mrs Wesley could have added phenomena to the existing ones, but could not have been responsible for the entirety of them.
Hetty Wesley
Hetty is often thought to be the source of the phenomena, mainly because of the statements that she was seen trembling in her sleep during or after the effects. These are thought to be her out of breath from moving quickly around the house causing them, or stifling laughter. She is also known to be often up after the rest of the household has gone to bed. Also strange is her missing correspondence which apparently existed at the time of LIX and LXII.
Perhaps though there is something else at play here – hormones. Mr Wesley initially suspects his elder daughters’ lovers to be responsible for the noises, so they are certainly seeing men of the locality. It is noted that Robin Brown had arrived a few weeks before the haunting began. A new man on the scene, to an impressionable young woman trapped in a quite restrictive household, could make for some interesting possibilities. Robin had been scared enough on occasion to come downstairs nearly naked. With good timing, Hetty could have caused some noises to startle him, and enjoyed the resulting view! She was known as quite witty and intelligent, growing up to become a well-recognised poet in her own right, so trickery is not out of the question to achieve this purpose.
Lonsdale describes Hetty as one who enjoyed the attention of a number of local men. She eventually ended up became pregnant out of wedlock, with her father arranging her a shotgun marriage to local plumber, William Wright from Louth. Their unsuitability for each other inevitably meant this was a disaster. Her poetry about marriage was condemned and disowned by her family, and the shame brought upon the family name may be the reason why her letters no longer exist, being destroyed in anger.
Given the opportunity of a back story of strange knocks and bangs from the house, Hetty could well have played into these effects for her own enjoyment and to see more of Mr Brown than should normally have been. Either that, or she was trying to cover something up and made certain knocking sounds when others were present in order to put them off the scent.
Robin Brown
Robin Brown was Mr Wesley’s recently installed manservant. He is the only witness to two visual phenomena, the white rabbit and levitating corn mill. We only have his word for this so cannot say for certain these actually existed.
He appears frightened enough by the phenomena to take the family mastiff into his room at night. Is there another reason for this though? Could it be that the dog needed moving out of the way from the lower levels so others may move freely around without fear of encountering it?
It is possible that Brown was in cahoots with other locals in the village, attempting to drive out the family. It would give an explanation to the family experiencing phenomena inside and outside of the house at similar times. It would also explain how Mrs Wesley could be tricked into ruling out Brown as a suspect due to being present during some of the phenomena. However, it doesn’t explain the haunting’s sudden halt after 28th December. Why stop when things were going so well?
Maybe Brown’s accomplice was Hetty, with the two of them being secret lovers? This is an interesting possibility, being able to cover each other’s tracks with phenomena and eye witness statements which ruled them out as suspects individually? This could also explain Hetty’s “disturbed sleep” if she’d made a noise in the garrets, disturbed family members and had to run from the garrets, down the stairs, and into the Nursery where she slept. It might also explain her presence at the foot of the garret steps one night (LXI) and why she’d wait up to helpfully ensure her father was seen to bed. Being familiar with Hetty’s voice, the mastiff in Brown’s room would not have barked at her approach. Also, if Mr Brown’s bedroom was above the Master Chamber (which we’re not currently sure of), the knocking noises heard by Mr and Mrs Wesley above their heads, together with one or two groans at other times, may well have a more carnal explanation!!!
Again, evidence suggests that not one of these explanations may be behind every phenomena, and it could be that there is a certain amount of “piggy-backing” taking place.
Other Children
Whilst the youngest children may have expressed a certain inquisitiveness, even playfulness, with the existing phenomena, it’s hardly likely they could have produced the wide range of effects experienced by the family. As such, whilst one or two knockings may be attributed to them, they are effectively ruled out by the remaining evidence.
The older daughters, Nancy, Emily and Suky all write about the phenomena.
Emily herself wishes more phenomena to appear (LXI) to stop her father thinking it’s anything related to male friends. Could it be that she contributed to some of the phenomena and / or story? Her father’s attitude towards ensuring they were seen to bed, this new restriction could have given her the impetus to ensure things occurred that put him off that line of thinking. Her letters are extensive, and it seems that whatever was causing this, Emily was quite excited by it all.
Nancy writes of a “levitating bed” (N2J) which is not in any of the original letters at the time. Such a spectacular phenomenon would have surely made it into her writing to Jack at the time, and has to be counted as probable embellishment. She is eye-witness to various phenomena, in the presence of others and seems quite frightened by it all.
Suky too seems frightened by the phenomenon and this comes across in her account to Jack (Sk2J).
Personally, I doubt there was much input into the haunting from the other daughters.
Paranormal
Whilst Old Jeffrey seems to be the favourite explanation for this haunting, and those with an expectation that spirits exist may want this to be the case, there is nothing in the evidence which truly cannot be ruled out with more natural explanations.
We shall never know if some spirit was feeding into the various family dynamics, but it seems unlikely.
Conclusion
The case has a plethora of eye witness statements contemporary to events. Later write-ups contain embellishments which we have to spot and put aside as such.
Upon beginning the research for this series, I was hoping that we could be able to find out a possible cause for such a wonderful story of events which was paranormal. However, upon reading the letters and background material, I am of the opinion that this was the combination of natural sources of sounds, probably caused by land drainage, household members interpreting strange new [natural] phenomena as having a paranormal source and a story being crafted around the phenomena. All this could be added to with the odd bit of natural help from certain family members trying to leverage the situation for their political point-scoring or entertainment.
Add in my personal favourite conclusion for much of the phenomena – a hot romance between the dishy manservant, Mr Robin Brown, and the attractive Hetty. Perhaps they realised that trying to keep up the story to cover their illicit encounters was becoming more and more impossible, and the all-night vigil was seen as the perfect way to cool things down?
Space and time do not permit a full and detailed analysis of the individual phenomena. After eight parts to the series, I hope to have provided you with enough for you to investigate yourselves that which catches your own interest.
We all have our biases through which we will interpret this story, and we should be prepared to challenge those biases by examining all evidence provided in haunting cases. We could be wrong, couldn’t we?
I hope you’ve enjoyed travelling through this series, meeting the various colourful characters in the Wesley household, and experiencing the haunting through their own eyes. If you’ve thought of something based on the evidence provided, or any background information, and would like to give your thoughts, we’d love to hear them. Please comment below!
Bibliography
Lonsdale, Roger (1990). Eighteenth century women poets: an Oxford anthology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 110–115.
Maynard, C. (1977), World of the Unknown: Ghosts, London: Usbourne.
Stonehouse, W. B. (1839), The History and Topography of the Isle of Axholme: Being that Part of Lincolnshire which is West of Trent, London: Longman, Rees, Orme & Co.
Footnotes
[1] Maynard, 24-25
[2] Stonehouse, 71-117
[3] Servant, Robin Brown, would have been tending to the family’s needs and not generally up there at that time, save to collect items from stores.
